Meres Communautaires

This weekend I had my second meeting with “Mères Communautaires”. This group of women comes to meetings once a month where I’ll be starting a conversation on different health topics. Afterwards, these women have the responsibility of starting these conversations in their own “quartiers” or neighborhoods with their friends. The idea is that peer education is better received and better translated into the local languages.

This weekend, the meeting, which was supposed to start at 8, started around 9:30 and went until 1 pm. The topic was Nutrition for Children. We talked about food groups, proportions, common signs of malnutrition and prevention. While the information could easily have been conveyed in one hour, the prolonged meeting time, in my opinion, is a sign that the women were really getting into it. My friend, Asta, into Kapsiki translated every slide for the women who don’t speak French. Then, the women would ask questions; the questions they would ask were amazing and showed that they were really understanding the topic. In fact, many of the questions were regarding how to deliver the information as opposed to the information itself, indicating they were already one step ahead of me. Also in the room, I had a nurse from the hospital. He was there to help answer any medical questions that I couldn’t, provide any additional information and help make my French understandable. At this point in my service, while my day-to-day French is pretty good, my topic-specific French is lacking. It helps that after I write every presentation I have to translate it into French, but still, my vocabulary is severely lacking for many technical areas. Needless to say, I was more than grateful to both my interpreter and the nurse.

The greatest part of the meeting though, was when we took a break for a snack. We were having beans, beignets and tea. The women, on their own accord starting breaking down the food into their respective food groups and trying to determine if it was a balanced meal or not and what could be added to make it more balanced. Some women mislabeled some of the foods, but immediately other women stepped in to correct them. The entire break was dominated by the same conversation in three different languages. It was so exhilarating. They had learned what I had taught them and were not only internalizing the information but also using critical thinking skills to dissect the information and apply it.

You guys sitting at home may not understand the significance behind this. Here in Cameroon, there is no critical thinking or problem solving. School is about repetition and memorizing lines. In America, we are taught thought processes, such as problem solving and critical thinking from a very early age. College reinforces learning new thought processes as we are introduced to new methods of study. But here, no one even thinks about it (no pun intended). School is not to enrich the mind, it’s not to teach someone how to think or apply learning in new ways. These kids go to school and memorize lines. Their English consists of “Good Morning, Madame. How are you? We are sitting down.” Rarely have I heard any Francophone Cameroonian speak above that level without some sort of private study on their own. So the fact that these women were taking what I was putting down, thinking about it, and applying the information to new data was astounding, especially considering they had just learned it five minutes before. Some of these women have never even been to school, although, in this case, I might be tempted to say that is an advantage.

I am so ridiculously proud of them, and, also, proud of myself. With help, I was able to teach an entire lesson in French and keep them engaged for hours. This week, my words are reaching corners of this and neighboring communities that I’ve never even seen.  I like to think that maybe a pregnant woman is getting enough protein today, or that someone’s kids are getting an extra orange, all because of the conversations these women are having. Yesterday, walking through town, three women stopped me and told me that they hadn’t been at the meeting (one of them wasn’t even in the group) but they had heard it was great and were wondering if I had any extra handouts.  Whoo hoo!

So that’s what making a difference feels like. This is why I’m here, to teach and empower and inspire people to make easy changes in their lives to improve their quality of life. And let me tell you, it feels good!

As for the rest of my life, things are going well. Friendships are being strengthened. My neighbor had a baby yesterday, and apparently, her Christian name is going to be Suzie. I’m flattered and flabbergasted.

The puppies are all gone. Sent to homes of their own. One of them, however, now belongs to my neighbor, the same one who just had a baby, so I still get to see him everyday. He gets so excited every time he sees me, he sometimes pees all over me. Perhaps to replace the lost puppies, or maybe just because Luke and I were craving some eggs, we got some chickens: a rooster and a hen. All Cameroonians believe that hens don’t lay eggs unless roosters are around (not true, according to some awesome googling by Kelley).  The hen doesn’t lay eggs yet though; my neighbor says she might be too young. And the rooster is driving me nuts. He crows 50 times an hour, at least. Every night at 2:30, he starts crowing for about half an hour, without fail. Then, he’s up at 5:30, crowing. They’ve taking a spot right underneath my bedroom window to sleep in at night, so there is no way his crowing could be any louder. I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep through it eventually, but for now, I’ve been tempted to throw things at him every morning. Yesterday, they both got out. I’m not sure exactly how. But my neighbor and I woke up early and started scouring the neighborhood for the rooster (the hen we found right away and chased back into my yard). Have you ever tried to catch a chicken? It’s really hard. They go slowly, letting you get nearer and nearer, teasing you into thinking this will be easy and then they simply go ballistic, running, jumping, kinda flying and screaming away from you. They only way to catch them is to corner them. By the time we found my rooster, we’d accidentally already caught a neighbors rooster that turned out not to be mine. We chased my rooster for a least an hour before getting him into an abandoned house and cornering him. What a freaking adventure. If I ever wanted to live on a farm, this rooster is dispelling that fantasy for me. But at least I know that sometime in the near future, I’m going to be eating this free range, pain in my butt rooster and he will be delicious. And I will enjoy him even more because his crowing will be forever silenced!!! Mwahahahaha (evil laugh). And maybe I’ll get to eat some eggs on the side.

Culinarily, things are still an adventure here. I got a package from my family with spices and herbs and I’ve been going crazy. Last week I made a full Mexican meal; I made everything from tortillas, to refried beans to fajita style green peppers and onions from scratch. Took a couple hours, but hmmm it was so good. Guess what I used to roll out my tortillas: an old giant beer bottle left by my predecessor. Resourceful, eh? I tried my hand at some Indian food with dal, but that didn’t work out so well. Italian food has been much more successful with some minestrone soup and spaghetti making me pretty happy. I’m also getting much better at making break. This morning, I cut into my most recent loaf, crunchy and crispy on the outside and fluffy and fully cooked on the inside. Bottom line is, meal times are so much fun right now, exploring what’s possible and pushing the boundaries of what I know.

So that’s life right now! There are good days and bad, better days and worse, but I’m making a dent and settling down and having fun. A lot of people have been asking about what I’m working on over here, so I might add a section of my blog to current projects, both for PCV’s to use and for you guys who have interest to read. So keep a lookout for the new section. Love to you all back home. Thanks for the support and love coming my way!